Wednesday, September 28, 2011

If you don't have time to read it, here's Clay Shirky's description of the article and response, in two sentences:

The critique of [social media's] ineffectiveness, most recently offered by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, concentrates on examples of what has been termed "slacktivism," whereby casual participants seek social change through low-cost activities, such as joining Facebook's "Save Darfur" group, that are long on bumper-sticker sentiment and short on any useful action. The critique is correct but not central to the question of social media's power; the fact that barely committed actors cannot click their way to a better world does not mean that committed actors cannot use social media effectively.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Can digital efforts impact real events? This is a question I continue to struggle with, particularly in this project I've been working on. I worked with a team to develop a Facebook game for ABC News and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition. The team included myself, Chris Swain from the Interactive Media Division, and colleagues from the USC Institute for Global Health: it was student driven and produced and was announced this week at the Global Good Summit in NYC.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Here, as promised, is my review of Siva Vaidhyanathan's The Googlization of Everything(And Why We Should Worry).

And, speaking of Google, remember when they decided to stop offering search at google.cn? Thanks to The Atlantic's James Fallows, who, in my opinion, is one of the best bloggers ever, I saw this little illustration right around then:

He found it on a blog called Little Green River. And I think Google should consider making it its yearly June 4th search page banner, as long as Google and China are in a fight, anyway.

David Palumbo-Liu posted a link today to this Ken Robinson TED Talk on Twitter, saying that it pairs well with Cathy Davidson's Now You See It. I think this video also intersects quite well with our readings this week in the Howard Gardner's Good Work anthology, particularly Seana Moran's chapter on "Returning to the GoodWork Project's Roots: Can Creative Work Be Humane?"

How do we utilize the imagination and creativity in such a way that it also instills a sense of responsibility for one's work, especially in the classroom, educational setting?

Friday, August 26, 2011

The translation of books into television/film is nothing new. The reverse, however, a filmic text becoming a book is pretty unusual. We will view Ways of Seeing in video form before reading the book. This will establish a theoretical grounding for the course, as well as giving us a concrete example of the ways in which text and image (still and moving) translate across different media.

This piece, done by Steve Anderson, describes a unit from his world-building class in which he framed Ikea as an Alternate Reality Game. This video also became part of an the HASTAC conference for which the IML was a virtual hub.

Although this project was not funded again (Wallis Annenberg moved on to other endeavors), it remains an important model for thinking about educational transformation. There is a longer version of this piece but here is the short form.

The research on neuroscience has been used by many humanists and media critics from Nicolas Carr's The Shallows to Cathy Davidson's Now You See It. I think N. Katherine Hayles has the most even handed approach and this keynote, delivered the the 2011 Computers and Writing conference, sketches the outlines of her forthcoming book.